Great Divide: The Disparity Caused By One Manifest Destiny

by Photomoney on Jan 21, 2012 2:21 AM CST

Upon looking at the standings following the conclusion of this evening's (well, technically last night's games) it was disgustingly apparent the disparity between the East and West if the playoffs started today. Who can, without looking, raise their hand and guess who is #7 in the East and bound for the playoffs?

Nope, not Boston (They're sinking faster than Orlando will without Dwight). Good guess though. It's CLEVELAND. Yep, Cleveland. Oh, and wait a minute. For the bonus question: If the playoffs started right now, how many winning teams in the West would NOT make it into the playoffs? That's right- 2! The West has 10 teams with winning records. TEN TEAMS. I know there is currently a significant amount of buzz surrounding the BCS and it's methods of selecting who plays for the BCS Championship. Taking that into consideration, I think it's apparent that the NBA's playoff system should be reevaluated as well. Essentially what we are seeing here is geographical discrimination. I know that sounds like a terrible hyperbole, but it's true.

If a worse-than-lackluster Cleveland team and a terrible-collection-of-mismatched-talent New York team can get in ahead of the Rockets and DEFENDING CHAMPION Mavericks, wouldn't you agree something is wrong with the system here? What's wrong with a 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15 system? We already have the All Star game for the East versus West match up. The question then becomes "What would the purpose of divisions and conferences be?" Well, that would be for scheduling purposes and again, the All Star game, respectively. Such "conference" and "division" records would be used to determine tie-breakers, if necessary. What other importance do they truly need to have? Some people might have a hard time grasping such a foreign concept, but to me what's fair is fair and the current system clearly isn't.

Call me crazy, I guess I'm just tired of seeing teams (whether it's the Rockets or otherwise) that bust it to get above .500 get shafted at the end of the day in favor of a blatantly lesser team. Either I'm right or the Cleveland Cavaliers honestly are a better team than the Dallas Mavericks. Word.

No cursing in title. No pirated material, such as links to online game streams. Do not cut/paste entire sections of content from other websites. Thanks.

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Comments

The pendelum will swing back again to the East someday.

Personally, I like the playoff system as it is. We just have to wait it out for when the East becomes stronger again and the West weakens a bit.

"I’m not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information." Bill Watterson~Calvin and Hobbes

by The Chuckwagon has rolled on on Jan 21, 2012 7:54 AM CST reply actions

hard to make it work

i think its ok the way it is now really but basketball teams arent like soccar every year they can possibly b a different team with trades/drafts/FAs. so the european champions league aproache would be nice but wouldnt really work? take last years final standings and group them by there final position.

taking last years standigs form groups of 5 teams to compete for the playoffs according to rank instead of location so a quick example would be this group.

Last season Team This season
1 West 61 Spurs 3rd 10-6
3 East 56 Celtics 10th 5-9
7 West 46 Hornets 15th 3-12
7 East 41 76ers 2nd 11-4
9 East 35 Bucks 9th 5-9

Out of this group last season ony the bucks didnt make the playoffs but 76ers were at .500 and hornets were over it by 5 games. This group is different one year to the next but quite similar 2 top playoff teams 1 bad team and 2 ok teams with bad records.

System would work like this top teams in each group go to playoffs the next 4 with highest wins go as well leaving 2 sencond place teams in there group out this could also reward teams like the bull last season who had the best record and help last place teams by sorting them into easier groups.

any ideas?

by IrishThrasher on Jan 21, 2012 8:11 AM CST reply actions

I just don't like that the Pacers got in the playoffs last year

With a losing record and the we didn’t with a winning record. Feelsbadman.

by RedRowdy420 on Jan 21, 2012 10:15 AM CST via mobile reply actions

It's fine the way it is.

It makes for more interesting match-ups. There would be no point in even having divisions or conferences with your system. And your system over-favors the already favorite top seeds. This would be much more predictable than they already are and people would not really want to watch. The system is just fine.

I hate david stern!

by batman713 on Jan 21, 2012 10:19 AM CST reply actions